I am not sure how many people here have been watching the National Conventions of both the Republican and Democratic Party. I am not going to talk about who is right or who is wrong I definitely have my own opinion. I would like to talk with you right now on how a Network Administrator is like the president (of any country)…holds on… before you think to yourself, “what the hell is he talking about?” Hear me out. And as Users we must state our opinions but abide by the decisions laid down by the admin (president).

** When talking about country I will be using the United States as an example **

I am sure most of you would agree with me when I say, security is among the most important functions in the cyber-world today. With a good security policy one can roam freely on the net, which is within certain restrictions that are for our good, and not worry about being taken advantage of by spy-ware/viruses/Trojans/etc. Sometimes having these restrictions can be a pain in the butt because we want to look at some porn or play some games. But when we are doing it we do not always see the ramifications of these little visits to sites or long hour’s online-gaming until it could be too late.

Well you could be thinking to yourself, I am smart I update my AV and I run Ad-Aware and I am not at vulnerability. Well this may be very true. You may be a brilliant user and you may know everything there is to know about ports, scanners and vulnerabilities and how to and how they are exploited. But does this still give you reign to do what you feel like on the network.

Now lets look at the security side of a network as admins it is your job to effectively and efficiently make sure that your network is unable to be compromised. There are many different types of networks and many different uses but they all run off this same base of ideas. So, how should a network run? Well in my experience I have seen many networks (both good and bad) and have learned from both. In my view I believe the only safe way to operate a network is by layering your defense and securing not only the outside but the inside. Here is a quick rundown of the industry-accepted standards: firewalls, disabling unnecessary service, keep software updated, run AV software (on the local level as well), (if online) run a anti-spyware program, run an intrusion detection program, collect our logs (and search for happenings), set up permissions for different users and use strong authentication and authorizations procedures. These what I would consider to be the industry standard for network security.

So now let’s look at the application a network can have to a country. Much like a network a country has many “users” and each user may have a different need. The country must be able to provide for it “users” yet still get them the things they need and sometimes want. The country (good countries that is) will set up many different defenses against intrusion (i.e. FBI, CIA, Local Police, Laws, Army, Navy, Marines, Air force, Coast Guard, etc.) just as a network does.

I would just like all the network administrators out there to see that even though their job can feel monotonous they have many people counting on them and they as individuals are important to the corp. Admins do not take your jobs lightly. And God Bless America and everyone else!

I hope to encourage some people!

- MilitantEidolon

September 4th, 2004, 12:13 AM

kurt_der_koenig

Quote:

Security is among the most important functions in the cyber-world

Very true.! Even though I, myself, am not an admin I agree with you! Definately I think this thread will encourage people!

-bis bald

September 4th, 2004, 04:34 AM

Palemoon

Well it is a good point as I have watched the rejected email from the spam scanner that never made it do I allow stuuf from the democtats oh sure why not it was oked...lol then the republician stuff started to come, so following the Pres example I did nothing about that but stetch the truth and said I gave it 5 minues of thought not to unblock them but acually just laugh. Noticed also to much spam off of Netherland servers as well as some parts of South America and parts of Asia oh what the hell ban the enire IP range of a country..lol no big deal. So are daily events.

But really now I'm not as lofty in my view of my job. I have one heavy bit of responsibility and something called Fiduciary duty not unlike what accounts used to have that is to assure business operations are secure, only business is conducted to protect the company assets after all all our income are on the files on servers and software drives that information and well it all breaks guess who ass is in the sling.

So yeah God Bless America and lets hope we will not get Bushwacked for another 4 years because vote records were lost in the latest storm to hit Flordia. LMAO

I see lots of really smart young network types when I have a need to have outside help on projects. What most lack is any understanding of business operations or business in general. Nope they seem to like to re-boot at 10:00 am in the morning file servers without saying a dman thing to anyone including me. So come down to earth it is not that lofty of a thing it's a simple job where you are the one where the buck stops right or wrong get it wrong as a consultant your butt may go out the door faster then you can blink and your consulting company may be left holding the bag for something. In house get it wrong to bad and well there is the unemployment line